Porta clausa es, virgo. Exegeses on Ezekiel’s Porta clausa by some Latin Church Fathers and Theologians between the 6th and the 12th Centuries

Abstract

This paper is limited to highlight a selection of exegetical comments through which, from the 6th century until the 12th, many Latin Church Fathers and theologians deciphered the eastern shut door of the temple (porta clausa) revealed by Yahweh to Ezekiel in a prophetic vision. This short study's select set of comments is complemented by a plentiful series of similar comments stated by other Greek-Eastern Church Fathers from the Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, the last series not discussed here. This considerable corpus of Greek-Eastern and Latin exegeses constitutes a solid centuries-old dogmatic tradition, according to which this Ezekiel's porta clausa is unanimously interpreted by all those Christian authors as a double complementary Mariological and Christological metaphor.

Keywords

• Latin Patristics
• Mary’s divine motherhood
• Christ’s incarnation
• porta clausa
• Ezekiel